The American presidential candidates campaigned in the important swing state of North Carolina on Saturday, in an attempt to secure more votes for the elections on Tuesday, November 5.

It was the fourth day in a row that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump visited the same state on the same day, highlighting how votes from a few key states would determine the outcome of the polls.

According to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, more than 73 million Americans have already cast their votes on Saturday.

Harris gathered in the city of Charlotte with rock star Jon Bon Jovi and R&B singer-songwriter Khalid, before making a surprise appearance on the highly popular Saturday Night Live show in New York.

Meanwhile, Trump made a stop in the state of Virginia before heading to Gastonia and Greensboro in North Carolina.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

Nationally, FiveThirtyEight’s latest poll tracker showed Harris with a very narrow 1-point lead, within the margin of error. Neither of the top two contenders exceeded the 50 percent mark. Harris’ average is 47.9 percent, compared to Trump’s 46.9 percent.

In the so-called Blue Wall states, which generally favor Democrats but are considered swing states this year, Trump is slightly ahead of Harris’s 47.6 percent in Pennsylvania with 47.9 percent, while Harris is 1 percent has an edge in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump is 1 percent ahead of Harris in Nevada, 2 percent in Georgia and North Carolina, and 3 percent in Arizona.

But in a potentially major political shift in Iowa, a state Trump won in 2016 and 2020, a highly respected pollster showed Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points at 47-44.

The poll, jointly published by the Des Moines Register newspaper and Mediacom, showed Harris drawing support from women, especially in older demographics and among independent voters not affiliated with a political party.

At the same time, polls showed that only 89 percent of Republicans supported Trump, meaning he is having trouble securing his base.

However, other state polls showed Trump still leading Harris.

What was Harris up to on Saturday?

While campaigning in the North Carolina city of Charlotte, Harris made an impassioned appeal for young voters, a Democratic-leaning demographic, to go to the polls. However, previous elections have shown that fewer of them turned up to vote than older voters.

“Every day I see the promise of America in the young leaders who vote for the first time,” she said.

“You are committed to living free from gun violence, tackling the climate crisis and shaping the world you will inherit.”

She also continued to sharpen her attack on Trump, saying the former president only cares about his interests without a comprehensive plan for the future.

“If elected, Donald Trump would go through his list of enemies on his first day in that office,” she said. “But if I’m elected, I’ll walk in on your behalf and work on my to-do list.”

When her speech was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, Harris repeated the same line she had said at previous rallies: “We all want the war in the Middle East to end.

‘We want the hostages home. And when I am president, I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

Earlier in the day, Harris also attended a rally in Atlanta, where she called Trump “unstable” and “out for unchecked power.”

After campaigning in North Carolina, Harris appeared on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in New York City alongside the actor who portrays her on the program, Maya Rudolph.

“I’m going to vote for us,” Rudolph told Harris.

What was Trump up to on Saturday?

Trump squeezed a rally in blue-leaning Virginia between two events in neighboring North Carolina. It was the start of a series for him in North Carolina, where he will campaign until Election Day.

Trump used his evening rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, to take credit for declining trust in the American media.

“The fake news at the time had a 92 percent approval rating when we started this journey in 2015. And now they are less than Congress, which is in the low 12s,” he said.

“I’m very proud of that, because I exposed them as fake.”

He then returned to one of his favorite talking points: the fear of undocumented immigration to the US.

“I will preserve American communities for American citizens. We will have American people in our communities,” Trump said, repeating the nativist rhetoric that has become common in his “America First” platform.

He also made an effort to tailor his anti-immigrant message to non-white voters in the US, warning, for example, that unfettered immigration could worsen black communities.

“If this continues, there will be no political power left for them,” Trump said. “Their communities will be largely made up of migrants.”

Trump repeated the false claim that Congolese migrants were coming to the US.

Harris, he said, “has violated her oath, eradicated our sovereign border and unleashed an army of gangs and criminal migrants from prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions around the world, from Venezuela to Congo.”

“Oh, Congo. Congo sends a lot of people. They send their people to prison. Think of the money they save and the danger, the danger of it all.”

There is no evidence that the Congolese government is sending people from their prisons to the US.

What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?

Harris goes to Michigan and Pennsylvania

On Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate heads to Lansing, Michigan, for the final two days of the election season.

Pennsylvania, another key battleground state as well as a fellow Russ Belt state, will be where Harris ends her series of campaign rallies on Monday.

She plans to appear on the eve of the election in the Latino stronghold of Allentown and in major urban centers such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Trump on his way to Pennsylvania and North Carolina

On Sunday, Trump returns to the southern state from Pennsylvania to visit Kinston, North Carolina.

And then, on Monday – the eve of the election – Trump will reach the state capital of Raleigh, North Carolina.

It’s a significant investment in a state that has become increasingly competitive in recent decades.

Recent polls show Trump slightly ahead of Harris in North Carolina.